Elon Musk’s xAI company has released two updated iterations of its Grok chatbot model, Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini. They promise improved performance over their predecessor, as well as new image-generation capabilities that will enable X (formerly Twitter) users to create AI imagery directly on the social media platform.
“We are excited to release an early preview of Grok-2, a significant step forward from our previous model, Grok-1.5, featuring frontier capabilities in chat, coding, and reasoning. At the same time, we are introducing Grok-2 mini, a small but capable sibling of Grok-2. An early version of Grok-2 has been tested on the LMSYS leaderboard under the name ‘sus-column-r,’” xAI wrote in a recent blog post. The new models are currently in beta and reserved for Premium and Premium+ subscribers, though the company plans to make them available through its Enterprise API later in the month.
The image-generation feature appears to be powered by the Flux.1 model developed by Black Forest Labs. While virtually every other image-generation system on the market — whether that’s OpenAI’s Dall-E, StableDiffusion, or Adobe’s Firefly — has guardrails to prevent users from misusing them to generate racist, bigoted, or violent content (especially when featuring celebrities, politicians, and other public figures), Grok-2 apparently does not.
One early user declared, “grok 2.0 image generation is better than llama’s and has no dumb guardrails” while posting images of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and xAI CEO Elon Musk boxing, as well as Donald Trump wearing a turban.
grok 2.0 image generation is better than llama’s and has no dumb guardrails.
ftw @elonmusk @grok pic.twitter.com/5wanVLrQyc
— sid (@siddaniagi) August 14, 2024
“Grok 2.0 will do political illustrations and real people, while ChatGPT refuses. This instantly makes Grok 10x more fun……” another user argued.
Grok 2.0 will do political illustrations and real people, while ChatGPT refuses.
This instantly makes Grok 10x more fun…… pic.twitter.com/yDBJO0jWba
— Benjamin De Kraker 🏴☠️ (@BenjaminDEKR) August 14, 2024
This new feature will surely prove a boon to internet trolls and, given the highly contentious presidential election slated for November (one of 50 national elections being held across the globe this year), it will likely aid in misinformation efforts across social media as well.
Did you think hitting delete on your AI chatbot conversation actually makes it disappear? Georgia Tech researchers just proved that's not entirely true. They have built a forensic tool called ORISA that can dig deleted conversations from your phone and even rebuild them into a working chatbot session you can keep talking to.
How can ORISA bring deleted AI conversations back?
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).
Two residents of Chicago have filed a lawsuit in the US over claims that robots run by Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics captured their facial and hand measurements without consent, bringing renewed attention to the food delivery robots. The cases raise a troubling question: If a robot delivers food to your door, can it also be gathering sensitive information about you?
According to a report by The Associated Press, the proposed class-action lawsuits were filed in Cook County on Oct. 9 and allege violations of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The complaints claim that the robots’ cameras and LiDAR sensors captured information on customers’ faces and hands as they approached the machines to pick up their orders. Both have denied the allegations.